by Dani Collins
“Feel how irresistible you are to me? Do you hear it?” His voice was husked in a way that seemed to abrade her all over, sensitizing her skin. His hot breath grazed her cheek before his lips nuzzled across her skin, seeking her ear. “These are not my earrings.”
“No.” She started to bring her hand up to the sleeper hoops she’d let Nura poke in when she pierced her lobes. They had stung for about five minutes, leaving her to wonder why she’d been so scared for so long.
Her hand bumped into his arm. She let her touch rest against his ribs, disconcerted by the fact she couldn’t see. It was silly. She mostly closed her eyes when they kissed anyway, but this was different. She couldn’t open them. It was like making love in the absolute dark and it emboldened her to let her hands explore where her eyes couldn’t, trying to get her bearings that way.
He made a noise of satisfaction and his mouth trailed to capture hers. Here, when he kissed her with this depth of passion, everything was right in her world. They kissed like that for long minutes, exactly as they had on other occasions, hands whispering over linen and charmeuse, slipping free a button or delving beneath an edge to find warm skin.
Except, rather than fondling under her blouse, he opened it completely and brushed it off her shoulders. Rather than lifting her skirt, he unzipped it and dropped it to the floor. And rather than hug her close, he stepped back so there was nothing but cool air around her.
“Akin,” she protested, automatically shielding herself with her arms.
“Oh, no, ya amar.” He took her hands and held them out to her sides like wings. “You are far too modest if you think that what I am seeing is anything less than perfection.”
“That’s not true.” She wore low-heeled sandals that were pretty enough. All her clothes came from top-end designers now, but despite lace panels and jewel tones, her underwear was still the least sexy style. Thongs and cheekies were way too uncomfortable, so she wore high-waisted, maximum-coverage panties. And she was wearing a nursing bra, for heaven’s sake.
“How does this come off?” he asked, touching once between her breasts before stepping to follow the bra to its clasp below her shoulder blades.
“Akin.” She tried to be brave, she really did. He was her husband, she wanted to make love with him, and he would see her naked eventually, but she felt so vulnerable. When he dropped the bra away and stepped back again, she curled her arms to hide her breasts.
“Hannah.” His voice was that commanding tone, but there was a catch in it. Just enough that she didn’t take umbrage. In fact, her nipples hardened against the press of her own arms. When he took her wrists and set kisses in each of her palms, tingles spread from her nape into her shoulders and down her whole body, weakening her knees and making them shake.
“If these hands continue to get in my way, I’ll have to tie them behind you.” He crossed her wrists behind her. “Keep them there. Pretend you have no choice but to let me see as much of you as I wish.”
“That’s kinky,” she accused.
“Only if it excites you. Does it?” His hot hands gathered her breasts, gently plumping them. She could tell by the heat of his closeness and the angle of his breath that he was staring at the pale globes laced with fine blue lines. He was watching his own thumbs make circles around her distended nipples.
She shifted restlessly, thought about breaking her invisible bonds, but it was a little bit exciting to pretend she couldn’t. A little bit freeing to imagine he had tied her up so she would be at his mercy.
“I think it does excite you.” He sounded pleased. “Your panting is making your breasts shake in my hands. It’s the most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen.”
“It’s fear,” she lied. “I’m being held hostage, if you recall.”
“Oh, I am well aware. You are completely mine to touch and admire. If I wish to slide these down just a little...” His thumbs caught in the band of her panties and took them down so they cut low across her hips, exposing the fine hairs at the top of her mound. “Then I may do so. I can do anything I want to you and you are utterly helpless.”
As she stood there trembling in a strange, erotic excitement, deeply aware of how exposed she was, his fingertips traced the line of elastic from hip to hip, pausing in the middle to pet and discover, ever so briefly, the place where her folds began to part.
Heat flooded up to her hairline and down to her loins. She was aware of a rush of damp arousal into silk and grew more and more sensitized, and more and more frustrated, as he continued to caress her with such teasing lightness.
“You are so lovely.” His voice was guttural and rough while his touch stayed light.
“You’re enjoying this,” she accused, scandalized by how much he seemed to be embracing their fantasy.
“Believe it. It’s all I can do not to bend you over the foot of my bed.” He drew her into a hot kiss, pressing her naked body into the hot linen that still covered him.
She almost forgot she was “bound,” but he loosely grappled her wrists in one of his hands while the other slid beneath her lowered panties to cup her backside.
He seemed to love her bottom. He never missed an opportunity to touch her like this when they kissed, stroking in a way that made her squirm against him, then firming to press her mound into his shape.
Today he traced the line between her cheeks, slowly, slowly easing her panties down until they were fully off her butt and cutting across the backs of her thighs. Then he drew back again and his hand gave her wrists a reminding squeeze before he said, “Are we coming up to Valentine’s Day? Because I have a gift to finish unwrapping.”
She heard his knee click as he crouched before her to take the lace and silk all the way to her ankles. Her elbows twitched as she fought her invisible cuffs. She clenched her eyes behind her blindfold, unsteady on her feet as he lifted them one by one to remove her sandals.
He rose with another click of his knee and she heard all the clothes being flung away from around her feet. He touched her hip to shuffle her a few steps, perhaps moving her closer to the bed. She heard him remove his clothes and licked her lips, waiting, but there was only silence now.
“What are you doing?”
“Looking at you.” His voice was behind her. “You’re in front of a mirror so I can see everything, Hannah. Your round ass and lush breasts and pale thighs and soft stomach. Your obedience.” He touched her crossed wrists.
She had started to draw them apart, but firmed their cross, releasing a small whimper of helpless frustration as she did.
“I’m looking at that mouth going all flat with annoyance and thinking about how much pleasure you give me with it. So much, I can hardly speak. I’m looking at your hair.” He touched where it stopped at her nape. “So soft I want to sleep with my cheek on it.”
He stepped up behind her, so his hot frame brushed her back and pinned her crossed wrists between his hard abdomen and her lower back. His thick sex rested against her buttocks, hot and heavy, while his hand came around her. His fingertip offered a barely-there caress along the seam of her folds.
“I’m looking at the dampness here that tells me you’re aroused,” he said huskily against her ear. “I feel so impatient to have you, I’m shaking with it. Do not ever let me hear again that you’re anything but beautiful, Hannah. That is an order.”
She might have had an intelligent response if he hadn’t chosen that second to sink his touch into her damp folds and gently part her. She stumbled back into him and he caught her close, pinning her arms even more firmly so she was trapped as he sought her swollen bud and encircled, gliding his touch over and around and across.
Intense pleasure was jolting through her. White light flashed behind her eyes. Her knees nearly gave out on her.
“Akin,” she gasped, hanging in his arms.
“Poor little captive, so helpless. Let’s tie you to the bed.” He r
emoved his intimate touch and steadied her. She could have wept; her sense of loss was so profound.
Moments later, cool sheets were at her back and he was guiding her hands above her head.
She scrabbled ineffectual nails against the quilted leather of his headboard while his cropped beard tickled her chin and throat and between her breasts. Her stomach muscles contracted as he arrived there, and she realized where he was going. She pressed her thighs together. “You don’t have to do that.”
“You are correct. I am in absolute control of everything that happens here. I may do whatever I want, ya amar. Do I have to tie your legs open?” He used effortless strength to part her thighs, but she was shaking more than resisting.
“You’re a barbarian at heart, aren’t you?” But she pretended her legs were bound, as well. She could do nothing but let him have his way with her. It was titillating to believe but liberating in how it allowed her to accept his caresses without guilt that she was being selfish. Without fear that she didn’t deserve to be pleasured and worshipped this way.
“I will be satisfied with nothing less than your complete surrender.” He was looking at her; she knew he was. Delicately parting her and letting his hot breath waft across her sensitive flesh as he spoke.
The anticipation was so palpable she was ready to scream with frustration.
“You are magnificent, Hannah. Feel it. Believe it.”
He claimed her, stealing across intimate territory with his lips and tongue. He undermined her resistance and staked a claim, easing two fingers inside her.
She writhed with pleasure. She could have broken her pretend bonds and reached for him. She could have torn off her blindfold and made this a more mutual act, but as much as she wanted to give him pleasure, she wanted to give him her. He wanted her unequivocally. Why else would he pleasure her like this?
With that realization, she understood that whatever had held her back in the past might have been real, but there were no shackles today except the ones she allowed herself to believe in.
She let go of her old hurts once and for all. She didn’t worry how she looked to him, only that he knew how magnificent he made her feel. She abandoned herself to the agonizing joy he was bestowing on her, holding her body open to him while holding back none of her moans and sobs of pleasure. She cried out his name again and again. When her climax hit, she held herself taut, hips lifted in offering, absent of inhibition as she exalted in his unrelenting ministrations.
As she panted in reaction and her flesh sang and her abdomen shook with reaction, his hands roamed from her thighs to her breasts. His mouth followed, taking restrained bites from her stomach and the inner swells of her heavy breasts and he sucked a decided mark against her neck.
Then he shifted so he was aligned with her entrance and brushed the blindfold off her eyes. Here was the barbarian, eyes glittering, cheekbones sharp as knives, the weight and strength of him caging her.
“You’re mine,” he said in a rasping voice laden with passion as he slowly, inexorably pressed into her.
She wouldn’t dream of arguing and couldn’t speak anyway. The sensation as he filled her was too intense. She abandoned her invisible restraints and closed her arms and legs around him. Claimed him as hers. She wouldn’t entertain any other belief as they kissed and he sank fully into her, so hard, so hot. So deeply a part of her that it was unescapable and profound.
He gave an abbreviated thrust, watching as he did, testing her readiness.
She didn’t shrink from his all-seeing gaze. She probably still wore the flush of her recent climax. Her eyelids were heavy, and her lips tingled. Everything about this moment was deeply intimate, but they were in it together. She drew his head down to kiss while pressing his shoulder with her other hand.
In an effortless twist, he hugged her tight and rolled so she was on top. She smiled and caught his arms, finding his hands and pressing them to the mattress beside his head.
One dark eyebrow went up, then his gaze narrowed as she sat tall upon him, running her hands over her body as she began to undulate upon him.
“Vixen,” he bit out.
“You unleashed the savage in me. You have no one to blame but yourself.”
“Use me, then.” He lifted his hips, encouraging her to ride him. “Show me how much you want me.”
She splayed her hands on his chest, bracing herself as they began to move together. It was raw and wild. Blatant and intense. Her breasts jiggled and their bodies slapped. When her thighs tired, he clamped his hands on her hips and guided her rhythm. She curled her fingers on his chest and thought she must be pulling his chest hair, but the tension was coiling in her and she was nearly there, as was he.
She bit her lip and watched him bare his teeth. She wanted to close her eyes as the wave began to engulf her, but she held his slitted gaze as dark color washed into his chest and face and the tendons in his neck stood up.
At the same time orgasm struck deep inside her, dragging a cry of repletion from her, he shouted and arched and let out his own shouts of release.
An unfamiliar intermittent hum woke Akin.
He dragged his eyes open to find his wife in one of his robes, leaning into pillows pressed against the headboard. She was nursing Qaswar, who was gulping loudly between humming in the way of anyone who was enjoying a hearty meal after a long fast.
“Is he always like that?”
“I don’t know why I thought I could do this without waking you. He’s like a starving wolf on a lamb, aren’t you, my little glutton?” She tenderly stroked her son’s hair. “Growling and gobbling.”
“I don’t mind.” Akin absently reached for the boy’s foot, which poked from his knee-length pajamas. It wasn’t even as long as his thumb, and his small toes curled as Akin ran his finger into the boy’s arch. He had the most ridiculous urge to press his cheek to the soft sole and let the baby feel the texture of his beard.
He released him and fell onto his back, curling his arm under his head, disturbed by how hard he’d slept, but damn, he felt good. Relaxed. He could get used to this, he thought, but immediately a cool draft entered his chest. A harsh recognition that nothing in life was permanent, so he shouldn’t let himself get used to it. Even people who seemed to care could cause pain and disappear.
He realized Hannah was looking at him with a small frown. “Problem?” he asked.
“I just wondered...” She touched the baby’s foot. “You said you and Eijaz used to play in the passageways. That makes me think you were friends, but... I know you said you didn’t want to talk about your childhood. It’s fine if you don’t, but I always wished I had a sibling. I wondered if you think we’ll ever give Qaswar brothers or sisters.”
“Ambush me in my own bed when I’m too weak to walk away, why don’t you?” he muttered, frowning to the ceiling.
He loathed dragging open heavy doors inside him, scraping across the grit of the past, but her expression was very naked and vulnerable. Their physical intimacy had formed a connection between them that was delicate and so tenuous it terrified him how easily it could be broken. He couldn’t shut her down.
“We were friends. Very different because we were raised very differently. He was the future king and mentored for that role. Spoiled. So spoiled,” he sighed. “But charming and likable, and I was his confidante, the only person who really understood the pressures he faced. The expectations he feared he couldn’t meet. In that way, I sometimes think my parents did me a favor, making me work like hell for each tiny shred of approval. Like how the straight A students fall apart when they reach university, but the ones who are used to getting Cs already know how to dig in.”
“I thought it was just your mother who was...less than forthcoming with her affection. But I don’t understand how any parent can favor one child over another,” she protested.
“My mother had a stillbirth after me, a d
aughter. Seeing how Eijaz’s death devastated her gives me some indication how thoroughly the loss of my sister must have broken her. She had two sons, you see. If she had to give up one of her babies, her daughter should have been the one to survive.”
Her arms tightened around Qaswar. “That’s so wrong, Akin. I’m sorry she’s lost two children, but no. That was deeply unfair of her. And you’re here. That ought to count for something.”
He didn’t bother pointing out his mother’s reduced mental capacities these days.
“I’m really sorry you lost your brother, though. He must have been your confidante, too? Did he never stand up for you against them?”
“In his way,” he said on an exhale. “He told our father I was planning to elope.”
“He did that?”
“He thought he was helping.”
“You believe that?”
“I do.” He’d been furious at the time, but it had been typical of Eijaz to do what he thought was best without thinking through to the consequences.
Akin watched her shift the baby to her shoulder and pat his back. The day he’d met her, he’d thought Eijaz must be laughing at the predicament he’d thrust Akin into, but now he wondered if any divine intervention might have had a more benevolent motive. The things he felt for Hannah were infinitely deeper and more complex than that youthful crush he’d once entertained. Had his brother tried to repair that long-ago injury from beyond his grave?
“Do you want more children?” he asked her.
“Not today,” she said with a wryly slanted glance. “But I will.” Her nod held calm certainty. “I thought when I got pregnant that one would be enough, but now I want someone for Qaswar to play hide-and-seek with. I want a family.” She knitted her brow anxiously. “I want this.”
She shifted to set the baby on the mattress between them and slid down to face him across the wriggling little boy.
“I want to make love and tell each other things no one else knows, and I want us to play with our children.” She held a hand against Qaswar’s foot so he could work his tiny leg muscles against it.